Know Thine Enemy (20 page)

"
No, please."

He swore again.
"Another fucking test, is it?"

"
Yes."

"
You're not yourself."

"
No. But I'm hurting. It's so hot." Izzie grabbed at him, raking her nails down his arms in a mad attempt to keep him close, though his proximity made everything worse. "I'm me enough to know this isn't me, but I need—"

"
Izzie—"

"
Please." Izzie didn't even realize she'd closed her eyes again until she forced them open. Heat blazed across her skin, coaxing the fire in her belly to a raging inferno.

L
ogic had checked out. She just knew she needed him. Badly. And now.

A whimper accented in her voice pealed through the air, flavored with huskiness she
'd thought only worldly, experienced women could produce. The sound was both foreign and familiar, a comfort and a thrill. It wasn't her, but it couldn't be anyone else. It was Izzie personified—trapped between reality and fantasy.

Right now, she was in the dream, and she needed him.

"Ryker."

"
I shouldn't," he said, though one of his hands had found her breasts. Naked already—this wasn't a surprise. Briggs hadn't let her feel the inside of a shirt in what felt like years. Ryker wasn't naked, though. For whatever reason, the doctors had not demanded he forfeit his sweats.

"
Help me," Izzie murmured.

"
Help what?"

"
Feel how hot I am." She seized him by the wrist and shoved his hand between her legs, rubbing her soaked flesh against his fingers. "Please."

Ryker
's answering growl only made her hotter. His chest pressed against her breasts the next instant, his strong hands clamping around her upper arms.

"
Make me forget myself. Make me forget why I'm here."

His head dipped, hot lips pressing a series of burning kisses down her throat and over her skin until his mouth wrapped around one of her breasts, teasing her mercilessly. His hand again fell between her legs, fingers dancing along her hip with feather-light strokes that betrayed his intent.

"Tell me to stop," he whispered.

"
Don't."

"
We don't need to do this."

"
Yes, we do," Izzie replied. "I need you."

He growled again.
"Part your legs for me, baby."

Izzie tossed her head back and obeyed mindlessly.

"Please," she gasped in a voice that hardly sounded like hers.

"
I know what you need." Ryker spread her pussy lips wide. "They made you need this."

"
Gahh—"

"
You've become my weakness. Dunno how it happened. You're so strong."

Izzie choked a sob, thrusting her hips forward.
"I don't feel strong. I can't fight here."

"
Yes you can."

"
Not like this."

"
We'll get there." He glanced down. "You're gorgeous, you know? Such a pretty pussy. All pink and swollen."

"
Ryker—"

"
So wet for me."

"
Take off your pants."

Ryker paused, his eyes going wide.
"We shouldn't—"

"
You do all the touching all the time. It's my turn, now." Izzie shoved him back just enough to grasp the waistline of his sweats and jerk them down. His cock was thick and erect, and the haze surrounding her head seemed to thin out a little. She settled back, her ass finding the mattress.

"
Izzie . . . ." Ryker trembled, wrapping a hand around his length and beginning to pump.

Fuck, it was mesmerizing.

"I've never seen one," she heard herself say.

"
What?"

She smiled shyly.
"Well, I've . . . uhh . . . once. With Wright."

He growled. It sounded possessive.

"It was dark, and it . . . was weird. We didn't like doing it."

"
Good."

"
But I never saw his . . . ." Her gaze centered on Ryker's cock, new need stretching through her. "Are we—"

"
No."

"
You didn't know what I was going to ask."

"
Won't enter you." At the words, his hand tugged harder at his dick, his eyes burning as though reflective of some inner war. "Not like this."

"
They're gonna make us, you know."

"
Then have them make us. That step is for you and me unless they take it away."

"
I'm still hot."

Ryker glanced down almost apologetically and released his erection. In seconds, he was on the mattress beside her, his hand cupping her pussy, his fingers massaging her wet folds and sliding over her tender flesh until the pad of his thumb had found her clit.

"Not gonna do it, but we can do something else."

"
Something else?"

"
I wanna touch you. I feel like a jackass for wanting it, but I do."

"
Just do it. I can't take this." Izzie fell back, spreading her legs. "Please, Ryker."

He released another ragged breath, trailing a hand between her breasts.
"We'll stop if you don't like it."

"
No stopping."

"
You say that now." Ryker slid to his knees, his face level with her pussy.

One long lap of her slit, and she was irrevocably lost.

"I'll try to do right by you, Izzie. I'll try to make you feel good."

"
Make it less hot."

He chuckled.
"Dunno about that."

"
Ryker!"

"
Lemme have this one thing," Ryker said softly, tonguing her clit. "Lemme . . . ."

She couldn
't deny him anything. The girl she'd known before this place—before their strange prison—was gone. A vision of something beyond the walls of her new life.

Something she couldn
't have and shouldn't want, but needed all the same.

Then he kneeled over her, his cock nestled between her vaginal lips, his balls resting against her anus.

"Oh shit," she panted.

"
Trust me, baby." He moaned. "Just lemme feel this."

She held her breath but didn
't reply, waiting, every nerve in her body on fire. She waited with heartbreaking wonder as he sighed in pleasure, hooked his arms under hers and leaned forward until his brow pressed against her shoulder. Then he moved his hips against her, sliding the length of his cock against her pussy, and the world around her dissolved.

"
Oh, my God," Izzie gasped, scratching his shoulders. "Oh, my God."

"
So hot. So fucking hot."

There wasn
't an inch of her that didn't burn, that didn't sizzle with the feel of him moving intimately against her. His balls slapped her ass with every wondrous thrust of his hips, his cock massaging her wet flesh in a way his hands never could. Ryker's arms were around her and his brow was at her shoulder. If her heart pounded any faster it would break her chest.

She held him and for that moment, she could almost believe he was hers.

"God, Izzie. You really don't know how much power you have over me, do you?"

He didn
't let her mull the thought over. Instead, his weight disappeared, and when she opened her eyes, she found his erection again in his fist.

"
Need to come," he gasped, sinking two fingers inside her with his other hand, thrusting in time with the strokes he gave his cock. "May I?"

"
Ryker?"

"
Your belly."

She nodded before she realized she didn
't know what he meant, and then it was too late. With a trembling moan, he spilled himself on her skin, and the sight, coupled with the look on his face, triggered her own orgasm. She tossed her head back and thrust her hips madly against his fingers, wave after wave of ecstasy claiming her whole. It was over before it began but seemed to last lifetimes, and the effect was so dizzying she feared she might lose consciousness.

Lose consciousness in a dream.

"You're so gorgeous," he murmured. His hand reached for her almost absently, his fingers spreading his spendings across her skin. "So fucking gorgeous when you come."

"
God . . . ."

Ryker exhaled slowly.
"I wanna do this to you out there," he continued, rubbing the sticky fluid up her abdomen until he was cupping her breast. "I want to touch you like this, but out of this room. It's driving me outta my fucking mind. Thinking of you like I do. Wanting the things I do. I'm going outta my mind and it's all your fault. And I can't stop—I can't do anything. You're consuming
everything
and I want . . . ."

She sucked in a breath, her eyes fluttering shut. He didn
't finish his thought, and she didn't press the issue. The more he said, the more he professed, the more she had to lose. The more stake she put into a future they would never have.

"
Izzie." The note in his voice was reverent, his sticky fingers pinching her nipple once before trailing down her flat, scarred stomach. "I'm marking you, baby. I'm marking you all over."

He was. The part of her that should have been disgusted was completely overpowered by the thumping of her heart and the resurging flood between her thighs. She
'd been relegated to nothing more than a possession, and she didn't care. She didn't care what loving this made her.

"
Do you think of me half as much as I think of you?" he asked hoarsely, as he gently rubbed his cum over her clit.

The sensation split her apart, almost tickling but not, and ignited something within her she couldn
't name. "Oh God!"

"
That's not an answer."

Izzie found herself screaming,
"Yes!" before her scrambling mind remembered the question. "Oh God, yes!"

"
Do you get hot at night? Thinking of this?"

His right hand slid up her stomach as his other worked her pussy, eager fingers pinching her nipple. And it was too much. She was already slick and aching from what they
'd just shared, and now he was going to make her come again. Just from touching her, he was going to send her spiraling over the edge. All the while, he utilized his power over her to unlock all her dirty little secrets.

"
Ryker—oh God, please!"

"
Do you?"

She nodded helplessly, and his breathing hitched.

"You're close again," he rasped, his thumb caressing her slippery clit as his eyes swallowed her whole. "Just from this? Just from my touching you?"

"
Ryker!"

"
You are, aren't you?"

"
Oh my
God!"
She thrust her hips against his hand, tears of pleasure scalding down her cheeks. Fire raced through her veins, hot spots of white blinking the room out entirely. Then it was only Ryker. Ryker's fingers pushing inside her drenched pussy, coating her insides with his essence. Ryker's thumb torturing her clit as Ryker's hungry eyes consumed her entirely. He moaned when she moaned and gasped when she gasped, and, when she trembled into another blinding orgasm around his fingers, her cry of release was nearly drowned out by his pleasured sigh.

It lasted forever but was still over much too soon. The world slowly blinked back, and she discovered herself snuggled in Ryker
's arms, her head cradled at his shoulder.

His fingers danced idly down the length of her arm, his hard breaths unmaking her completely, but he didn
't speak. He held her but didn't speak, and she was glad. If he spoke, she'd be forced to talk as well, and she didn't know what to say. God, she doubted she could form words that made sense in any rational language.

She didn
't know what had just happened. Her mind was numb, her body sated and wonderfully worn out. From the fight. From her inner struggle. From the phenomenal heights she'd reached and the fear of the inevitable fall.

The fall, however, could wait for now.

* * * * *

Shame with sex was such a Victorian notion, one he
'd thankfully skipped on account of not being human. Still, resting with Izzie in his arms, sharing what they'd just shared, having taken advantage of her during some bout of drunkenness or chemical high brought unsettlingly human-like remorse to the surface of his psyche.